Doctors Without Borders Evacuates Teams From Yemen After Repeated Strikes From the US-Supported Saudi CoalitionD

Yemenis inspect the damage in a room at a hospital operated by the Paris-based
aid agency Doctors Without Borders in Abs, in the northern province of Hajjah,
on Tuesday. (photo: AFP/Getty)

Doctors
Without Borders Evacuates Teams From Yemen After Repeated Strikes From the
US-Supported Saudi Coalition

By Merrit Kennedy, NPR

20 August 16

Doctors
Without Borders says it is evacuating its staff from hospitals in northern
Yemen after 19 people died when an airstrike hit one of its hospitals on
Monday.

"Given
the intensity of the current offensive and our loss of confidence in the
Saudi-led coalition's ability to prevent such fatal attacks, MSF considers the
hospitals in Saada and Hajjah governorates unsafe for both patients and
staff," the group — also known as Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF — says in a statement. It
adds that the hospitals will continue operating "with staff from the
Ministry of Health and volunteers."

The
Saudi-led coalition, which supports Yemen's embattled president, has been
waging an air campaign against Yemen's Shiite Houthi rebels since March 2015.
The Houthis hail from the north of the country, and according to MSF, the
"coalition has resumed an intensified campaign" there since the
Houthis and the coalition suspended peace talks earlier this month.

Coalition
members said in a statement released on Saudi Arabia's state news
agency that they "very much regret" MSF's decision.
"We are seeking urgent discussions with MSF to understand how we can work
together to resolve this situation."

However,
MSF says it has tried to communicate with the coalition, to no avail. "Over
the last eight months, MSF has met with high-ranking Saudi-led coalition
officials on two occasions in Riyadh to secure humanitarian and medical
assistance for Yemenis, as well as to seek assurances that attacks on hospitals
would end," the statement reads. "Aerial bombings have, however,
continued, despite the fact that MSF has systematically shared the GPS
coordinates of hospitals in which we work with the parties involved in the
conflict."

MSF
Director of Operations Raquel Ayora says,
"The explanations given by the Saudi-led coalition are not enough
reassurance for us." Here's more:

"We don't think that all measures necessary are being taken
to prevent more incidents. We have the feeling this incident might happen
again, and we consider therefore that hospitals are not safe. Not for the
patients, not for our staff."

Ayora
calls the decision to pull MSF staff from the six hospitals an extremely
difficult one and adds that she hopes it is temporary. She says MSF fears that
resources now will be diverted to focus on treating war wounded, rather than
branches such as maternity services or chronic diseases.

The
group says the bombing of the Abs hospital in Hajjah governorate earlier this
week was the fourth attack on an
MSF-supported facility in the past year. "At the time of
the airstrike the hospital was full of patients, including newborns and children,"
an MSF statement reads, noting that the now-closed facility has treated 4,611
patients since July 2015.

"This
new incident shows that there are no effective measures in place to ensure that
hospitals are not another casualty of war," says Teresa Sancristóval,
manager of MSF's Emergency Unit.

According
to The Associated Press, "rights groups and U.N. agencies say that more
than 9,000 people have been killed since the Yemen war escalated with the
Saudi-led airstrikes."

"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs